Deconstructing fear - should we be afraid?

When was the last time you remember your hands sweating, heart racing, mouth dry, fidgeting and shallow breaths?

Fear is a normal human experience. And for many people its an experience that comes around far too often.

But what is it?

I mean, how do we break it down into its constituent parts so we can not only understand it better, but take control of it?

I love learning 'how' things work.

Not so much physical things. Out of the 7 billion people in the world if your car breaks down, there are 6.999999 billion people better suited to help you than I am.

But when it comes to how the mind works, I love to know the 'how'.

And today I'd like to demystify fear for you in a way that allows you to create a 'fear checklist' so you can identify the block with laser precision and take steps to work through it.

Fear can be broken down into 3 parts.?You feel afraid when you perceive:

1. Something real or imagined.

2. Occurring either now or in the future.

3. Bringing more negatives/pains compared to positives/gains.

Putting it all together, you feel afraid when something real or imagined, occurring either now or in the future, brings more negatives/pains than positive/gains.

That is fear - not so scary when you see it in black and white is it?

A totally different issue when you're in it however!

Let's explore each component...

Something real or imagined

There is convincing evidence that shows us your brain does not distinguish the difference between a threat that is real in your environment compared to existing only in your mind. That's how you can think about negative events from the past and replay them over in your mind and feel stressed, anxious and afraid all over again. Your mind scans your reality always in the 'now'.

BUT...?

It filters your reality through both your internal and external worlds. Meaning the pictures and movies in your head are given as much weighting as the actual events in the physical space around you.

Isn't that remarkable?

Occurring either now or in the future

Events occuring in the now make total sense, after all, where else would be feel afraid if not in the now?

The future element is more interesting. When we have experiences in the past labelled as negative, your mind will project those events forward in time, thus creating anxiety.

For example, let's say growing up you were bullied by a classmate. One of the kids in the year above, with more clout and more muscle. As the experiences of being bullied can be terrifying, your mind learns bigger, more senior people are intimidating.

20 years later when you go to make a call or proposal to someone in a senior position, with more business clout and greater financial muscle, your mind uses the evidence of the past to create scary, worst-case scenarios of the upcoming meeting that create stress and sleepless nights for days before.

The future projection of the past causes the anxiety.

Brings more negatives/pains compared to positives/gains

Through your own personal value system, you'll judge some things as being positive and advantageous and others as being negative and disadvantageous.

Whether you are conscious of this process or not, your brain bases it's (stress) response on the ratio of positive to negative data relating to any particular action.

When there are more positives than negatives, we label it as 'good'.

When there are more negatives than positives, we label it 'bad'.

Fear occurs when the scales are skewed too heavily in the negative direction.

What can we do with our checklist?

Awareness is first and foremost. When you understand how fear works, it loses it's scary, unpredictable and nebulous energy. It becomes a process that you can observe and even alter.

If it's a real threat... then take ACTION NOW! Action is the antidote to fear.

But of course most of the time it's imagined. You have the power to be your own mental movie producer and by taking control of your thoughts, you shift your body's internal state.

If it's off in the future, use whatever way works for you to get you back in the present moment. Yoga, walking, arts, crafts, running etc. There are a million ways to do it, so focus on regaining your mental presence.

Finally you can balance the scales, identify the positives to neutralise the fear and allow your whole nervous system to restore calm.

If you'd like to learn more about how to do that and you'd like me to share a specific case study, please pop me a reply and I'll turn one of my upcoming newsletters into a case study.

Until next time,?

Danny